You would think that a lifetime of taking on the bad guys would prepare a man to handle whatever came his way in retirement, now wouldn't you? Think again. Working for MI5 1/2 was almost easy, compared to some of what Richard Hugh is up against now.

All over the planet - from Pakistan to Tanganyika, from Scotland to Australia - doctors carrying their little black bags enter the private worlds of patients as they struggle with the business of living and dying.

Lilah Kedem, an expat long resident in Boston, returns to her native Israel in an attempt to heal a family rift. She encounters a society different from the one she remembered and now plagued by extremism and disillusionment. When the attacks imperil those dear to her, Lilah joins the hunt for the perpetrators and becomes part of a citizens movement, Jews and Arabs, striving for a new Israel.